Today’s Yahrtzeits – 5 Adar

-Rav Ze’ev Wolf (Velvele) of Ostracha (also known as Tcharni-Ostraa) (1823). He was a close talmid of Rav Dov Ber (the Maggid) of Mezritch and Rav Pinchas of Koritz. Thereafter, he became a follower of Rav Meshulam Feivish of Zhebariza, the Yosher Divrei Emes. He married the daughter of Reb Zushe of Hanipoli. Three years after the petira of the Yosher Divrei Emes, he made aliya (in 1798) and settled in Teveriya. -Rav Shmuel Abba Shapira of Slavita (1864). Printer of the famous “Slavita Talmud”; grandson of Rav Pinchas of Koretz.

-Rav Avraham Landau of Tchechenov (1875). Born in Prantzav, he married at 16 and had 4 children. Lodz and Lublin fought for the honor of hiring Rav Avraham as their rav, but he instead chose to lead the small rural community of Tchechenov. Only after the Kotzker Rebbe and Rav Yitzchak Meir had passed away, and hundreds of their followers turned to Rav Avraham for blessings and advice, did he finally agree to became a Rebbe.

-Rav Eliezer Gordon (1841-1910). Born in Chernian, Lithuania, to Rav Avraham Shmuel Gordon, a talmid of Rav Chaim of Volozhin. He learned at Rav Yisrael Salanter’s yeshiva in Kovno with Rav Yitzchak Blazer, Rav Simcha Zissel Ziv, and Rav Naftali Amsterdam. He succeeded his father-in-law as rav of Kovno, but left after three months to become rav of Kelm, where he opened a yeshiva. Then he went to Slobodka and stayed for 6 months, then he went to Telshe, which had been started in 1877 by Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel and Rav Eliezer Chavas. In 1897, he hired Rav Leib Chasman as mashgiach to fight off the influences of haskala. Rav Lazer was nifter in London on a fun-raising mission after a fire destroyed the yeshiva in Telshe.

-Rav Mordechai Shlomo Friedman (1891-1971), Boyaner Rebbe in New York. He was the son of the first Boyaner Rebbe, Rav Yitzchak Friedman, the Pachad Yitzchak, and the brother of Rav Menahem Nahum Friedman (1869-1936), Boyanaer Rebbe of Chernovitz, Rav Yisrael Friedman (1878-1951), Boyaner Rebbe of Leipzig and Tel-Aviv, and Rav Abraham Yaakov Friedman (1884-1941), Boyaner Rebbe of Lemberg. His grandson, Rav Nachum Dov Brayer, is the present Boyaner Rebbe of Yerushalayim

-Rav Yosef Farbstein (1947-2006). Grandson of Rav Yechezkel Sarna, he became Rosh Kollel of Beis Shmuel under Rav Horowitz, the Av Beis Din of Ungar. In 1970 he married Rebbetzin Gittel, daughter of Rav Akiva Ehrenfeld, founder of Yerushalayim’s Mattersdorf neighborhood and nasi of its institutions, and the granddaughter of Rav Shmuel Ehrenfeld, the Gavad of Mattersdorf, Austria. In 1988, he was appointed Ram in Yeshivas Ohr Elchanan under Rav Moshe Chodosh.